BOSTON, August 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
Gum for oral care and diabetes detecting bees are two of six innovations seeking to disrupt healthcare opportunities for urban slum dwellers
After completing a month-long start-up accelerator hosted by Hult International Business School's Boston campus, the six finalist teams vying for the US1M Hult Prize now have one month remaining to refine their pitches before presenting to President Clinton at the CGI Annual Meeting in New York on 23 September.
During the start-up accelerator, teams from University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, HEC Paris, ESADE Business School, Indian School of Business, and York University received mentorship from prominent business leaders and Hult faculty in order to hone their start-up ideas - which address the issue of non-communicable-disease (NCD) in urban slums.
"Given the complexity associated with the healthcare topic, I am excited that we continue to see the same high-quality ideas and solutions coming from the teams," said Dr. Hitendra Patel, Professor of Innovation at Hult and leader of the Hult Prize Accelerator. "Teams this year are presenting potentially groundbreaking solutions for the prevention and detection of cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, diabetes, and cancer. I am honoured to be a part of the Hult Prize initiative, and wish all of the finalists good luck as they prepare for their final pitches."
A panel of all-star judges, including Dr. Mohammad Yunus (Nobel Laureate and founder of Grameen Bank), Dr. Sanjay Gupta (neurosurgeon and Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN), Sheila Marcelo (Founder and CEO of Care.com), Fadi Ghandour (Founder and Vice Chairman of Aramex), and Ashish Thakkar (Founder and Managing Director of the Mara Group of companies), will join President Clinton to select the winning team.
"The Hult Prize continues to transform the way students define their place in the world they inherit and how they can address big social issues affecting all of us," said Dr. Stephen Hodges, President of Hult International Business School. "We are honoured to host these young social entrepreneurs and support them as their ideas come to life."
Over the last five years, the Hult Prize has brought together 35,000 college and university students from 600 schools to solve some of the world's most pressing challenges. To learn more about the prize and this year's solutions, visit http://www.hultprize.org.
